85-Year-Old Woman Refuses To Remove Painting Of Virgin Mary From Home

posted by Bill Galluccio -

Dec 5, 2018

An 85-year-old woman in Florida is refusing to remove a painting of the Virgin Mary after a property manager for Vanguard Property Management ordered her to take it down. Millie Francis said that she was given permission to cover her front window with a piece of plywood following issues with her neighbor looking into her home and security guards shining flashlights through her window late at night.

After she got approval to board up the window, she decided to paint the plywood with the likeness of Our Lady of Guadalupe.

“I didn’t know what I wanted to do in that space,” Francis told the Bradenton Herald. “I was at church during Mass just before communion. To be honest, I wasn’t concentrating much on Mass because I was preoccupied with what am I going to do with this board? I said, ‘Please dear Lord, help me decide on what I want to do.’ I don’t want to say I had a vision or anything like that, but felt enlightened and received the inspiration from our Lady of Guadalupe to paint her image. So I promised that I would.”

“If I have to go to court, then I have to go,” Francis said. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t take this anymore but I can’t see it coming down. It’s not hurting anyone. They don’t have to look at it if they don’t like it so I don’t understand why they are against me, but it’s going to stay.”

Francis said that she is worried about what will happen if she loses in court, especially if she is forced to pay the legal fees for the management company's lawyers. But, no matter what happens in court, Francis has no plans to take down her painting.

“I just don’t know anything about this legal stuff. They say I’ll have to pay their attorney fees if they prevail in court. I can’t afford this. I need help and I don’t know what will happen to me, but I do know I’m not taking it down.”